Interspecies Trader

Just like most of the rooms I could see on the way, it was composed of two distinct areas. About half was made of large bookshelves filled with books of all sorts. The rest of the space included smaller separated rooms, which I guessed were there for people to read in a quiet environment. These were fully enclosed and only had one glass window on their doors.

The older librarian stopped in front of a particular bookshelf and extracted three books from it before giving them to me.

"This one has all the alphabets with the corresponding sounds. That one is a children's book, perfect for starting to learn the language. And this one has some basic grammar explanations."

"Thank you very much, that's a big help."

"You're welcome, young lady. Now, keep in mind that books are precious so handle them with care. You can settle down in any of the rooms to read. Put the books back in their place when you're done with them."

"I understand."

"Good. Have a pleasant read. Come back to us if you need any more help."

"Thank you."

She left and I walked around the rooms. I checked through the window to see if any of them had some free spots for me. Unfortunately, they were all full of mostly young women who filled every available seat. After inspecting all the reading booths in this area, I had no choice but to check another main area of the library. Yet, the second and third ones were the same. It was only in the fourth one that I found a room with only one girl inside. It was weird that all the spots would be freed only here when everywhere was crowded but beggars couldn't be choosers.

I opened the door and entered, surprising the girl a little with my arrival. Thinking that she might be someone special for others to avoid her like this, I scanned her a bit more carefully than I usually did with most people.

Object: brown-haired girl in her late teens.

Wealth level: wearing a high-quality green dress and several accessories of high value. Possessions unknown. Living quarters of unknown value. Wealth is impossible to quantify but estimated to be high.

Power level: amount of ryl in her body estimated to be between 1500 and 1800, rank 1, wood quality. Muscle power: less than 10. Estimated to be a wood mage. Adding a two-factor multiplier to account for hidden moves and trump cards. Estimated maximum power level at 3600: baby learned a trick. Harmful potential: low.

The result was slightly surprising. It was my first contact with someone ranked that "high" at such a young age in the inside world. Considering most people were between rank 0 and 2, she had a brilliant future in front of her, at least according to the standards of the dome.

"Hello."

I greeted her in the local language, one of the few words I managed to remember so far. Once the initial startle disappeared from her expression, she scanned me from top to bottom, glanced at the books I had in my arms, and put some sel on her ears.

"Hello. Are you trying to learn the language?"

This was one smart girl. She understood my situation in an instant. Or maybe my accent was so terrible that it made everything obvious.

"Yes, that's right. Can I sit here?"

"Go ahead."

She nodded before going back to read her book, a thick one that I wouldn't dare approach for a long time. I closed the door behind me and sat in front of her. These small reading rooms only had six seats around one table so they weren't large by any means. Still, it didn't feel crowded since we were only filling one-third of the capacity.

It was now time to get serious. After fifteen years of intense training and studies, who could have thought I would go back to the books once again? And here I was so happy a few days ago when I knew this was all behind me after graduating. I sighed mentally and opened the first book with the different alphabets. It couldn't be helped now. This was something I had to do either way now that I was stranded in this world. The earlier I was done with it, the better.

Unfortunately, I was met with an obvious problem. The alphabet was described in many different languages to help people but I didn't know any of them. I had no starting base to make a comparison and I didn't even know how each letter should be pronounced. For the next ten minutes or so, I checked the whole book to see if anything could be of help but that wasn't the case, of course. I started to groan helplessly while scratching my head when the girl in front of me addressed me.

"Do you need any help?"

I raised my face to see her looking at me with some goodwill.

"I do. I totally do." 

There was no shame in admitting to needing help when you were in a pinch. Not that I had any shame left in me by now.

"Oh… What's the problem?"

"I'm trying to learn the alphabet but I don't know how each letter should be pronounced."

"I see. Would you like me to assist you?"

"That'd be awesome."

She nodded and pointed to the first few letters.

"This one is pronounced 'Aaa'. This is 'Bee'."

Just like that, the girl kindly started to teach me the alphabet. That was something very welcome. As long as I could read, I could use sel to help with translation while listening to the original world. It was possible by using sel in one ear only. From what I heard, most people gave up trying to learn languages with this method but it was perfectly adapted to me. From there, my learning speed would shoot through the roof. It wouldn't be long before I would get a basic handle on the local language.

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